brands were just out of reach – emotionally and financially amateurs were mainly buying Eko, Hofner, Levin and Yamahas… my first guitars when I was 14 or 15 were a Japanese Epiphone and then an Eko Ranger 12-string. point here: I’d been playing guitar on-and-off since I was 14 and obviously knew that Martin and Gibson existed (I was a voracious live music fan, record buyer and played in various folk bands) but, like most amateurs in the U.K., American brand guitars were the instruments of dreams and for professionals… remember only in 1959 did the U.K. The journey into true obsession didn’t happen in a thunderbolt but like the proverbial, “How do you boil a frog…” I realize that back in ‘95 was when the “frog that had just been slipped into a pan of lovely… warm… water.” There’s also a U.K. That led me to start reading up on Martin history (Carter’s The Martin Book, etc.) and a few months later I’d traded up the 00-21 for a 00-42… John Stubbings: I can pretty much pinpoint it precisely to March, 1995 when I had just turned 40 years old… It was the day I finally bought my first Martin guitar, a late ‘70s 00-21.

We decided to touch base with the author to hear about how this exquisite book came to be and, of course, to talk gear.įretboard Journal: When did your guitar obsession begin? It also more than a few FJ connections (Stubbings attended the first Fretboard Summit we produced, where he landed several interviews).

It harkens more to the famed, limited edition, letterpress editions of the famed Doves Press than anything you’d find in the aisles of Barnes & Noble. The slip-cased, deckled-edge volume – filled with commissioned hand-drawn art from FJ contributor Drew Christie – is unlike any other “guitar book” you’ve ever seen. Stubbings has just released The Devil Is In It: A Story of Love, Obsession and the American Acoustic Guitar, a completely unique, limited-edition keepsake book that’s equal parts memoir and an oral history of the modern guitar movement.

At some point in his obsession, he started to document it. Stubbings went beyond just amassing a nice collection, however.

And, soon enough, his guitar purchases multiplied and he found himself browsing the inventory of Dream Guitars and The North American Guitar, eventually commissioning a custom guitar from an independent luthier (Dave King). After years of sub-par instruments, he made the leap to a nice Martin, which soon led to another, better Martin. Like a lot of us, London’s John Stubbings is a bit obsessed with guitars.

Eko Ranger Guitar Serial Numbers